wraith
by tamedbanshee
Summary: This was a battleground and she was caught in the crossfire. Despite her words and her weaponry, Hisa had better things to worry about. [SI/OC]
1. Chapter 1

Hisa was brought up on the bone grinding, the blood spilling and the sweat pouring of hard work. To be silent and to be demure, to follow the rules of the world crafted around her.

The shrine was her home.

Home was such a _fragile_ concept.

 **.**

 **.**

She was not the first newborn to left upon the steps of the shrine, there was nothing outstanding or unusual to the naked eye. Hisa had grown in the arms of her brothers and sisters, her uncles and aunts. Those who cared for the temple, who cared for the shrine.

On her knees, she scrubbed. Hands blistering and knees scabbed, she tirelessly worked.

 _(What am I working for though?_ She would ask herself silently.)

A small but coy smile playing her lips, her clothes torn and ripped, they were worn.

"My! What a helpful little girl," some would croon, gnarled hands over wrinkled lips.

Hisa took pride, she took to the vices which those from the temple tried to wash from the shrine. Nimble fingers and their lighter pockets, she was kind in her takings. Only from the cruel, from those who took but gave nothing back, those who refused to leave anything for the spirits. The whispers greeted her, _agreed_ with her and when she gave the taken coins to the temple, they didn't question their good fortune.

It was only when suspicion grew from those victim of the shrine; their pockets forever lighter - her brothers and sisters, her uncles and aunts, the people she thought of as family, laid the blame on her so readily. The cold winter wind slipping down her spine.

Her nimble fingers and coy smiles were no longer welcome, the coin she gave them was good but it couldn't carry on, _not forever_.

Her blistered and calloused hands took her meagre belongings, small childish frame heaving the weight of her own survival as she left.

( _I hope your greed crushes you_ , she whispered before departing.)

 **.**

 **.**

"We don't need another mouth to feed."

"Street rat."

" _Burden_."

The sound of a door slam was becoming an echo in her mind - like the soft whispers which had followed her from the shrine. Hisa offered her work, her labour to all those who would listen, if only for shelter and a meal a day.

She grew up with little but she would not be reduced to _nothing_.

The blacksmith, a scarred and unkempt man by the name of Aoi, took one look at her calloused palms and swept her under his wing. He was twisted and layered with thorns, with a limp that required a cane but the strength in his arms almost seemed to make up for what he lacked.

"You will take orders, you will polish and sharpen my tools and the weapons," he said.

She parroted her duties.

He remained unimpressed, would continue to be until the waif proved her worth.

The polish was pungent in its smell, it was thick and claggy. Hisa used an old rag to mask the stench, wrapping it around her nose and mouth. It was the slick sounding of a blade being sharpened that became a balm, the crisp drag of a blade against the whetstone sent shivers down her spine and brought a smile to her lips.

In a way which scrubbing shrines hadn't.

 _Home_ quickly became a blade.

 **.**

 **.**

The Senju and the Uchiha were at war.

It became increasingly obvious that the small village, the settlement which she'd stumbled upon ― _blue and starving and abandoned_ ― was in the midst of their battlefield. Their soldiers strolled through with misplaced arrogance, the threat of conflict looming over them like a storm.

Hisa watched carefully and Aoi placed a hand on top of her head.

"They are boys pretending to be men," he told her quietly. "Their blood fills the fields and they don't see any shame in it."

"Do they know they get their weapons from the same place?"

He was the only blacksmith in their settlement. Aoi had seen better days and she dreaded the crossfire which they'd be caught in when the Senju and Uchiha crossed paths on their land. Aoi's fingers twisted in her hair, leathery skin stark against the dark teal of her hair.

"Sharpen the axes, girl," is all he says.

The sound blades would soothe her hackles though and instead, she carried on her watch, staring after the two Uchiha soldiers who wandered past. If they paid her any mind then all they would see was coy smiles and frayed clothes, she went relatively unnoticed otherwise. So they strolled past their shop without pause. Hisa's hand slipping from where it gripped the knife tucked in her obi. The whispers curling around her ears, tugging her in every which way and the brisk winter chill served to make her retreat into the meagre warmth of the shop.

"Sharpen the axes."

She nods to herself, _the axes were better than a mere knife after all_.

 **.**

 **.**

Hisa was not a girl to many.

She was ' _boy'_ and ' _brat_ ' and ' _peasant_ ' but never ' _girl_ '. It was unsafe to be a girl, to be small and fragile and a pinnacle of femininity in times of war. Aoi gave her thick pants to wear and a mask which would cover the bottom half of her face. Hair shorn close to her scalp, as if it would hide the lumps and bumps that were forming in the early ages of womanhood.

She was the boy who carried the weapons without breaking a sweat.

She was the brat which practised for hours a day with the blades.

She was the peasant who delivered their goods and took their coin.

The Senju and the Uchiha were threading through their small community more often, they were pulling the civilians into a war which they didn't belong in. No man's land was quickly becoming a mass grave. Victims were dropping and their small village was being destroyed. Hisa watched as the families fled for their life, to seek out refuge elsewhere until so little remained.

If Hisa worked a little harder, if she spent a little longer with her blades ― cutting deep into her skin, the mulish set of her jaw, the defiance lit in her like a beacon― then no one said anything about it. Aoi continued to craft his weapons, continued to sell to those who came in need, whether they were Senju or Uchiha. He played the game and held his cards against his chest.

( _It's only a matter of time_ , she whispered to herself.)

( _Time is running out,_ the whispers murmured back.)

* * *

 **AUTHOR NOTE: Will I ever finish a story? _probably not_. I have a vague idea where I'm going with this, it's not like anything I've written before I don't think. It's very much in bits and pieces. Let me know what you think. **


	2. Chapter 2

War, despite the games which children played, was not pleasant.

Hisa watched as the havoc spread, Uchiha and Senju were meeting in battle more and more often. There was no warning, there were no graces given to the civilians who might have been in their way. They were enemies and upon laying eyes on one another, they were blindsided to everything but the bloodshed they'd both caused.

It was vengeance for vengeance.

An eye for an eye.

It was a cycle which continued to churn, like a well-oiled wheel.

 **.**

 **.**

"Where're my kunai, girl?" Aoi grunted.

"Probably still in the targets out back," was her glib response.

Hisa had seen fourteen winters by that point, having arrived into the reluctant arms of the small village but a year ago. Her warm bed by the furnace and the meal she was given every night was enough to anchor her to the place, alongside her surly partner. Aoi grew slower with every month, his joints aching and his bones creaking but there was still life seething within his form.

He gave her a clip around the ear for her impertinence.

"Then go get them," he hissed. "Brat."

"Old man," she said but did as she was told.

The three targets were battered and bludgeoned within an inch of their lives. Carved from the thick trunks of the trees and slammed into the ground, they made do with what they had. The kunai was sharp enough to lodge handle deep into the wood, the children which remained tried to make it a game to see who could pull one out.

 _None had succeeded yet_ , she hummed to herself, accounting all eight of them before pulling them out, one by one, with the ease of cutting butter.

A year of work, of training, of using blades and weapons thinned her arms with wiry muscles. Her core tightened and a spark beneath her skin. She'd gained a head of height and was looking forward to the days which she could speak down to someone rather than it being the other way around.

"I haven't got all day!" Aoi griped loudly, voice carrying through the open windows.

"I'm coming!"

Her sense of peace was warped, whilst blood was spilt and bodies piled up around them, they threw barbs and quips and children played in the street. Uchiha and Senju wandered through and so far, they had luck on their side. Their skirmishes stayed on the outskirts, they kept their heads down and their goods offered at the ready.

Their weapons, their food, everything had a price most days.

Her feet were light and quiet on the floor, _practice makes perfect_ , slipping into the workshop with nary a sound.

"I know you're there," Aoi punctured her bubble so easily.

He hadn't even turned around to look at her.

"No you don't."

" _Brat_ ," he warned.

She grinned, the mask moving with the contortion of her lips, as she placed the kunai into the wrap left out. It was a small package for the Uchiha patrol which would be arriving the next day to pick up their order.

"Be careful who sees you do this kinda shit," Aoi told her, hearing her threaded together the package so they didn't rattle loose. His back still facing her, refusing to look her in the eye. "Soon they won't have enough blood of their own to spill, they'll start to draft other clans, other warriors."

"Is that what you were?" She asked quietly, gaze slipping down to the puckered flesh of his right leg. Hisa had never questioned him, they both had their secrets; just like he never addressed his limp, she never mentioned where she'd come from. "A warrior?"

His hand patted his hip and she flinched, hearing the rattle and creak of it even at a distance.

"I fought for my family, back when we had our own land," Aoi told her quietly, turning his body half towards her. He might've held a sword in his hands, working out the imperfections of it with precision but his eyes told her that he was _so very far away_.

"What happened?"

"The Clans wanted the land, ...me and my sister were the only ones to make it out alive when we fought for it," he said.

( _And the same thing is happening again,_ she couldn't help but notice.)

They were silent for the rest of the workday.

It was only after the sun had set, their day finished and Hisa had sat down on her bed near the furnace did he approach her again. He crouched, using his cane to keep his balance lest he fell onto his bad leg. Aoi had seemed ancient to her when she'd first arrived but it was startling to realise that he was a young man, old enough to have started a family of his own but young enough to have only begun to wrinkle around the eyes and mouth.

"We live in unsafe times, you get knocked back down? You get back up," he told her.

Hisa nodded.

The weight of his hand on top of her head served to make her neck ache and lacked the comforting warmth it once had.

"Getting back up doesn't mean shrug it off," he told her, his voice hoarse and his eyes were cold. "It means make the fuckers _pay_ for dragging you down in the first place."

 **.**

 **.**

Their good luck didn't last.

Uchiha and Senju converged on a brisk morning.

Aoi hadn't even made it to the shop yet and Hisa was awoken to the sound of blades being unsheathed at a disturbingly close range. Her eyes shot open and she tumbled out of her bed, dressing quickly and the mask pulled up just in time for the door to be kicked open.

"Boy, where's the blacksmith?!" The soldier yelled.

He sounded like he was just a boy himself.

"He hasn't come to the shop yet," she dutifully told him.

"Fetch him!"

She didn't know who was ordering her around, Senju or Uchiha, her eyes still blurred with sleep; there was no mistaking the blood or the gore which awaited outside the front door. All she knew was that limbs were severed and the rotting corpse would no doubt become their problem to deal with.

( _Just like most of the aftermath of these battles_ , she wanted to hiss at the slack soldiers stood off to the side.)

She made a show of veering to the right in a dead sprint, unwilling to give up Aoi's place of residence, which was a mere ten steps away from the forge. Instead, Hisa cut through the back streets and climbed into Aoi's house through the open back window.

He was stood near the front door, dressed in some of his finest clothes.

"Whatever happens," he said. He always knew when she was there and he looks resigned and defeated and angers **burns** through her like a fever. Aoi doesn't turn around to look at her as she strolls through his home, she wants him to though. _She wants him to look her in the eye_. Instead, she swallowed the thick lump that had formed in her throat. "You say nothing, you do nothing."

" _I can't just-_ " she croaked.

" _Hisa_ , repeat it back to me," Aoi demanded, finally doing what she wanted and turning to stare at her.

It was wild, frenzied and borderline desperate.

"No matter what, I say nothing, I do nothing," Hisa echoed and if there was a wobble to her voice then neither of them spoke of it. Instead, he lifted the arm which didn't clasp his cane and beckoned her close.

His arm was heavy and warm, muscled and solid, it was a weight which rested on her shoulders. It was something she wanted to curl into and flinch away from. His rough fingertips brushed against her scalp, clasping the hair which had grown out since they'd cut it, a shaggy mess on top of her head. Neither of them spoke, he simply pressed his dry lips to the crown of her head.

"Say nothing, do nothing," he said.

He knew what he was walking into.

They both did.

No tears were shed.

( _Not even when Hisa heard the sickening thud of his head leaving his body_.)

* * *

 **AUTHOR NOTE: this was written disturbingly quick. I'm glad you guys are enjoying it though! It's very cold and callous and to the point, unlike some of my other flowery bullshit. Let me know what you guys think though!**


	3. Chapter 3

She took over the shop.

There was no one else to do it and no one who would have volunteered for it either. They saw what the soldiers had done to Aoi and no one was willing to put themselves at risk like that. The shop was shut for just shy of a week, simply for her to clean up the blood and to take the bodies around back, to bury them by the target posts. The few families which remained suddenly offered their condolences, _their pity_ , their doors were magically open in contrast to when they had slammed shut in her face.

Hisa was no longer an outsider, it was a small victory in the grand scheme of things.

Small victories was what she had to work with though because Aoi had been killed for ' _selling to their enemies_ '.

She might have promised Aoi to stay silent during his execution but Hisa had wanted to scream at the man who dropped the blade onto his exposed neck. Hisa had bitten her tongue, her lip and tasted her own blood as her mentors poured onto the ground outside his shop. _She'd wanted to tear them to shreds with simply her words and the fury they were laced with_.

How dare they call them ' _their_ ' enemies.

They weren't allies, they weren't on the same side.

In fact, they weren't even in the same equation.

The war between the two Clans had escalated to the point of arrogance- _no_ , it had managed to go further than that. It was as if that war had become their way of life, that they thought the sun rose and set with the sole purpose of bringing them another day of combat. They thought that their war was the be all and end all, that their war was more important than the lives of common folk- that their war _**was** _the lives of common folk.

Hisa might have been coy smiles, nimble fingers and worn clothes.

She was also bone grinding, blood spilling and sweat pouring.

There had been anger laced in her flesh before she knew what anger truly was. She'd been abandoned on the cold steps of the shrine, left behind by her own flesh and blood and then shamed from her first home. Hisa had been accustomed to being wronged, the bitterness was a rot in her chest and it was slowly consuming her. It was lodged deep within her ribcage, unwilling to be removed.

"They think they can get away with this," a woman told her, the day which she reopened.

The forge was hot but there were no orders to complete, no one had any requests and she thought it was out of respect for Aoi. Regardless, Hisa had no intention of starting any sort of project that day; instead, she stood at the counter with a fierce glare that swept over all which crossed her path. The woman's face was worn with age and the same sort of rage which she felt deep within her bones, within _their_ bones.

"They have gotten away with this," Hisa told her.

The mask might have muffled her words but it doesn't distort her disgust.

"Then you need to make them pay, _boy_ ," the woman demanded. Her wrinkled fist slamming into the countertop. "You make them pay for what they did to my brother."

Hisa didn't pause or hesitate, lips curling and fists clenching.

"Make them pay yourself, you've no right to demand anything of me," she sneered.

( _No one does._ )

 **.**

 **.**

She met Uchiha Toichi by accident.

She didn't learn his name until months later.

It was on one of the few days of rest which she took midweek, closing the shop and using the time to flee to the slow current river that was only minutes away from their settlement. A place which had apparently been lively and peaceful during the summer months. It was deserted most days, ever since the skirmishes had gotten closer and _closer_ to their borders.

The battles didn't scare her like they should've done though.

Instead, she simply made sure she was armed to the teeth.

With no one there, it meant that Hisa was free to drop all pretences. Pulling down the mask was always satisfying, freeing, even if it was something she'd worn since Aoi had gifted it to her. She stripped down to her underwear and chest-bindings, not bothering to check the water temperature before diving in head first.

It was deep enough for her to swim around but shallow enough that she wouldn't risk drowning, _not really._

The thing about war is that you never should leave yourself vulnerable. Hisa should've always been on guard, all it took was one mistake.

"What're you doing?"

His voice was like ice down her spine.

She'd shot over to the side of the river before realising what she was doing, her hand wrapping around one of her knives and throwing it blindly in the direction of the voice. The thud of blade meeting and his high-pitched yelp didn't settle the rapid pace of her heart.

"Hey!" he yelled.

Her fingers dug into the grass, pulling herself up to peek over the edge. Her hair was slicked back from the water and there was no hiding she was a woman now. The thrill of fear sitting in her sternum and Aoi's voice echoed in her head, reminding her the dangers of being a woman caught unaware in these times.

The Uchiha, _it had to be an Uchiha._

The Senju were no better, not really but the Uchiha had this hubris to them, their posturing, their symbol painted on every fucking piece of clothing they owned. Their sneer and his glare, staring down his nose at her whilst he held her knife. He looked angry, as would anyone who had just had a knife thrown at them, looking like he intended to match the cut she'd made across his cheek with a cut of his own.

There was something inherently satisfying though to watch his haughty gait falter as he got closer.

It was like watching a light go on when he realised who had thrown the knife, that she wasn't a 'threat' in his eyes. Uchiha were somewhat traditional, women weren't common on a battlefield.

" _Y-you're,_ " he fumbled.

"Swimming," she helpfully supplied him. Knowing full well that wasn't what had him in such a state.

"Indecent," he hissed back.

She said nothing, instead continued to float in the murky waters.

( _Use every advantage you have,_ she told herself.)

"Are you going to turn around whilst I get out… or are you just going to stand there and stare?" She asked.

The Uchiha sputtered indignantly, a red hue rising up his neck but she wasn't sure if that was out of anger or embarrassment. He almost dropped her knife, probably unused to someone outside of his Clan talking back to him.

( _What? Was she supposed to drop to her knees subserviently?_ )

He turned though, rather than going in for the kill for her lack of respect, his back facing towards her.

All she could think was _I could kill you so easily that it wasn't even funny._

It was cold and callous remark, something which had started since she'd heard the grotesque thud of Aoi's head meeting the pavement outside his house. She'd closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see it but it had haunted Hisa's dreams, it probably would for the rest of her life. It simply knocked into her head the lessons which life was trying to teach her.

That life was fleeting, that it could so easily be taken away.

With a quiet sigh, she pulled herself out of the water and dried herself off before the chill seeped in too deep. Her clothes slightly damp and her mask hanging loose around her chin, there wasn't any point trying to hide behind it at that moment.

"You can look," Hisa said.

She wanted to smile when he peeked over his shoulder warily.

"Sorry for throwing the knife," she murmured, holding her hand out expectantly.

The steel was cold against her palm and his callouses brushed against hers. He tried to regain his bearings, tried to compose himself in the same way which all Uchiha tried to hold themselves. That he hadn't caught her at her most vulnerable.

"You're lucky I don't-" he started, turning around to face her. He stopped mid-sentence and his unspoken threat lingered in the air.

"I am sorry," was she sorry she threw the knife or was she simply sorry she **missed**?

He doesn't say a word but simply stares at her, scrutinises her, she feels like he's looking down his nose at her.

"What're you doing 'round these parts?" She eventually asked.

It's quiet and demure, peering up at him through her eyelashes. It served to make him uncomfortable again, it knocked him off balance. He was just a boy himself, barely older than her. Nervous around girls and fumbling for the right words, his face remains blank.

"Clan stuff," he shrugs off and the vague answer irked her.

"Really? Like what?" She leans in, her eyes now wide as if she's enraptured.

( _Use every advantage you have,_ the voice of the old woman who took her in told her.)

There had been a five-year gap between leaving the shrine, the temple, _her first home_ and finding Aoi. It had been filled with hungry nights and scavenging for means to survive. The old woman lived in the red light district of one of the more prominent cities, ran an upstanding brothel, Nanami had let her seek shelter in her home for small favours.

She had taught Hisa that men enjoyed thinking they were interesting. That nothing made a man's lips looser than a pretty woman who seemed to be hanging off their every word. Uchiha Toichi didn't seem to be any better than the average man, susceptible to a pretty face.

Hisa wasn't arrogant, she knew she was somewhat attractive.

"Basic stuff, replenishing stocks, surveying possible recruits," it was an offhand comment and he rolls his shoulders like it meant nothing.

It is nothing to him though.

He was simply doing what the Clan had told him, had instilled into him no doubt since he was a boy.

"Sounds difficult! Did you and your team get everything you needed?" She asked, leaning into his space without hesitation. She didn't know if it was her settlement he was coming back from, didn't know his purpose, _didn't know how many of them there was._

"My partner went south because the small villages blacksmith was shut," he commented.

"Ah, I see."

"You didn't answer my question earlier," he murmured. It was his turn to lean into her space, so _fucking_ arrogant. He towers over her by a good head and a half. "What're you doing out here?"

Hisa's smile is sweet.

Her grip tightened and she swung.

The knife was in his throat before he could blink.

She wasn't arrogant enough to think that she'd have been able to take him on in a proper fight, that the element of surprise was her only way out. If it had come to that. For all she knew, it might not have become a confrontation but was that a risk that she had been willing to take? _Fuck no._

Hisa stared at him.

He choked and gasped around the blood in his throat.

He sank, lower and lower until he crumbled to the floor. At some point his hand had reached out, clawing at her pants leg. Some twisted part of her mind danced gleefully, it crooned and it gloated and it screamed _where's your hubris now boy?_

There's _so much blood_. She didn't think there'd be that much blood but then again, what did she expect?

All she knew was that he was going to die, it hadn't even been a conscious thought.

Toichi gargled, choked on his own blood and his other hand gripped the handle of the knife that was deeply embedded into his larynx.

There were so many reasons he was going to die: He knew that she was a woman? He was going to try and recruit the men of her settlement for war? He was seen as a threat at that moment? _Take your pick._

Her smile wasn't pretty but it wasn't supposed to be.

She wrapped her hand around the handle of the knife, her hand laid over his, pulling the knife out of him. It made a wet squelch as it came loose, it was soaked, it was dripping in his blood but all she did was crouch down, wiping it onto the grass next to them.

Her eyes never leaving him, the eye contact was important.

It was something which she wanted to see.

She'd probably regret it later when it was night time and she was going to sleep. When her dreams would come out to play, to haunt her, it was something to watch whilst the tune of Aoi's head hitting the floor echoed in her skull.

At that moment though, there was something so sickeningly satisfying.

"It's nothing personal," was all she managed to tell him before he expired, his body just… crumbling, _flopping_ , like a puppet cut from its strings. The tears are streaming down her cheeks and she didn't know who they were for. Instead, she tucked the knife into her belt and slid the Uchiha's glassy eyes shut, smearing his blood across his eyelids. "Such a shame."

 **.**

 **.**

Uchiha Toichi's body was found downstream of the river, closer to the small Uchiha settlement.

They blamed the Senju.

The war raged on.

* * *

 **AUTHOR NOTE:** **AH! I'm glad you guys are enjoying this! I hope this sort of makes sense because mainly I wanted to show how Hisa is slowly becoming more involved in the war, whether she wants it or not. Let me know what you guys think! Your reviews are everything to me, thank you so much!**


	4. Chapter 4

The war brought out both best and worst in people, for some, it showed their bravery and their honour. They willingly went off like lambs to slaughter for the off-chance to make a difference, to make things better for those they loved even if it cost them their own lives. For others, their cowardice was like a stench they couldn't shake, some ran, they fled to the mountains. To the lands which had been otherwise untouched by the warring clans. Not that Hisa blamed them.

If she'd been any different? if things had gone differently? Perhaps she would've done the same.

Stubbornness.

The scant remaining villagers called her dedicated, they called her loyal and she bit her tongue. To them, she was a mere boy trying to keep their small settlement safe. Blind to her faults and clueless to how her mind worked.

She wasn't dedicated, she wasn't loyal, she was vicious and she was bitter.

Like a child being told not to do something and in petty retribution, she does it anyway.

It didn't bode well for her, it didn't do her any favours. Above all, she aimed for survival. There wasn't any pride in what she did, what she had done for years to get through cold winters. It was how she stumbled through five years, alone and helpless until she fell into Aoi's awaiting arms. His wing shielding her.

Hisa was unwilling to move.

The warring clans weren't subtle in their movements, one hiring a Senju and the other hiring the Uchiha. It just grew from there, animosity and hatred and blood. Children dropping like flies. They were the ones to bring their war to her doorstep, their village hadn't moved. The Clans, their feud was the one which was encompassing them, was growing like an infection in a wound. Hisa simply decided to take things into her own hands.

( _the knife was in his throat, the sick **thud thud thud**_ )

"We don't serve Senju or Uchiha," Hisa told the man.

He was muscular, tall and built to take down many. Unlike the few shinobi she'd had the dubious honour of interacting with, he had the wear and tear of age. Older than the others, no mistaking him for boyhood. His eyes were like knives, that of a veteran, of a man who had seen and bled too much. The wrinkles and the scars and his scowl serving to tie her stomach in knots.

Her eyes dancing down to his clan symbol.

Senju.

"You serve paying customers," he insisted and there's a bite to his tone.

"Aoi served paying customers," Hisa she corrected "that distinction got him killed." Her eyelashes fluttering against her cheekbones and her lips purse under her mask. "You wanted good service? Shouldn't have killed him."

It's a lot more cheek than she'd been willing to give any soldier before.

The slick feeling of blood glides over her hands, Hisa ignores the ghostly sensation because she knows the Uchiha's blood is not, in fact, on her hands. Metaphorically, definitely but in the literate sense, the only thing which covered her hand was the smudges of polish used on the weapons.

"Boy, do you know what you're messing with?" the Senju man growled.

"M'not messing with anything, I'm telling you, we don't serve Senju or Uchiha," she said. If her tongue felt heavy and she had to properly enunciate so she wasn't slurring her words out of fear, then that was her business. "I'll say this to you and anyone else who tries to buy my wares, you wanted good service? Shouldn't have killed him."

There's a vicious satisfaction.

And then there's a knife against her throat.

She knew the gap between their skills, whilst she might have been light on her feet, Hisa had been training for all of a year and a few months. The Senju and the Uchiha were born and bred for war, they breathed it and they bled it. What Hisa did know, was fear.

Fear was a constant companion.

The Senju man was quick with his knife, leaning over the counter with the blade pressed against her jugular but she refused to gulp, in fact, out of sheer stubbornness she refused to even blink. No doubt Aoi would be screaming at her for her reckless tendencies since she leant forward against the blade, a kunai and it was blunt.

He needed new weapons, after all, that was why he was at the blacksmiths.

"Is this supposed to make me more inclined to help you?" she whispered as if asking for some big secret.

"Brat," the man growled.

His words were hissed, they were vile and acidic. The last time someone had called her a brat it had been said fondly, it had been something close to affectionate - but that had been ripped away from her.

Hisa nodded, blade scraping against her neck.

"Damn right," she said. Her hand reaching over and flipping the sign, overtly and completely unsubtle, telling her customers that she was now closed for business. The Senju never moving his blade, instead, he watched her do it with a sneer. Hisa wished that she wasn't wearing the mask so he could see the snarl on her own mouth - wanted him to see her baring her teeth. Instead, she played coy and she played sweet, her eyes wide and her tone patronising. "You can always try tomorrow."

The soldier stormed off without another word.

The air whooshed out of her, the only reason he hadn't killed her was because he needed her wares. There was no naivety, as soon as she became obsolete he'd probably be back to gut her like a fish. No doubt he'd probably bring others the next day though, to try and pressure her into making weapons for him, for their Clan.

He could try.

 **.**

 **.**

"Everyone stays inside, if the fighting breaks past the gates then take them to the cellar and flip the latch," Hisa old the innkeeper quietly.

The Senju and The Uchiha had congregated outside of their small settlement, both hired on opposing ends of a dispute between merchants. It wasn't about the merchants though and it never was, their competition and their war served nothing but their pride. It echoed in the night and it haunted their doorways.

The innkeeper gave a curt nod, the gaggle of villagers gathered in the room were quiet. The low hum of chatter was like white noise and the panic, the tension weighed heavily on everyone's shoulders. Who wanted this sort of life? No one cared for this blood bathed pissing match between the clans. All they wanted was for this to stop, for their children to grow up without a fear of being inducted into slaughter, for their daily lives to carry on. They didn't want to be cowering in the inn, to have to retreat to the cellar where they kept their alcohol and surplus stock for the winters.

Her people deserved better than this.

Hisa paused, lips parted and eyes sweeping across the huddle - were they her people?

"You're going out there?" The innkeeper asked gruffly, scratching the tip of his nose, attempting a disinterested tone.

"Gotta do something."

He nodded.

"Wait here," he murmured and hobbled off.

Most of the people who remained in their settlement were villagers who couldn't leave easily, it was the elderly and weak and the sick. Most of the young men and women, the small families had left in droves after the first clashes. Around the same time which there was mention of civilians being forced into servitude to clans, to fight their battles for them. There were even fewer children remaining, they were either too young or bordering on an age which some would consider using on a battlefield.

Hisa stared at the ten-year-old boy, nestled in the cradle of his mother's arms.

He was trying to ignore the sound of war in the distance.

( _Hisa wondered if they'd be able to sleep without it when it ended._ )

Eventually the innkeeper hobbled back, drawing a few stares from those who cared to look. Hisa was the only person lingering in the doorway, the door opened a crack so the wind whispered against her spine. The lashings of rain had subsided for a moment but there was a rumble in the clouds, dark with a promise of a storm.

The innkeeper handed her a weighty black material, it was thick and sturdy in her hands. She folded it, twisting it in her rasp as she peered up at him, confused. The innkeepers lips unfurled into a wrinkled smile, one of guilt and grief; "It was meant for my son, before he…"

His fate didn't need to be said aloud.

"Aoi made it for me, as a favour as long as I promised to keep an eye out for you when he left," she hadn't known he planned on leaving but her cheeks felt hot, throat tight and the tears were welling. "It'll be a little tight around the chest, considering."

Hisa's eyes widened and the tears spilled over, a small spark of panic igniting.

"A few of us've known for a while, we get it," the innkeeper murmured, placing a warm calloused hand on her shoulder. He glanced over at his wife who was making rounds through those who needed blankets, food and water. She almost seemed to feel his gaze, glancing up from the older woman she'd been attending to, nodding in their direction with a small smile of her own. The innkeeper looked back at Hisa. "We owe you."

"You don't owe me anything."

"Agree to disagree," he offered.

Hisa nodded and stepped back, his hand falling from her shoulder and she glanced at the dark material. "Thank you."

Without another word said, she walked away and the door closed behind her.

The armour was thick, soft to touch and plated with metal under the fabric. It wasn't light but it wouldn't hinder her since she carried a lot worse during her times at the shop. As he'd said, it was a touch tight around the chest but it could've easily been her nerves? Hisa, whilst trying to protect the home which Aoi had given her, hadn't actually stepped foot on a battlefield. She'd never seen the viciousness beyond their settlement. The death, the blood? That had been within these walls, it wasn't against soldiers born and bred for this.

Hisa had been born for nothing of importance.

She'd been left on the steps of a shrine, ruthless survival instincts did the rest of the work.

The _thud thud thud_ in her ear was familiar as she grabbed as many blades as she could keep on her person. Fingers gliding lovingly over certain blades she knew Aoi had crafted himself.

The _thud thud thud_ was his head meeting the ground.

It was her footsteps towards the gates.

The sound of bodies meeting the ground.

It echoed the thrum of her pulse in her ears.

"Getting back up doesn't mean shrug it off," Hisa whispered to herself, lips moving against her mask and the gates in view - once forever open, now closed in light of the brewing battle outside.

The clang of metal.

The stench.

The fear.

The gates opened.

 **.**

 **.**

"Was it scary?"

"Were there monsters?"

"Did you beat them?"

A laugh bubbled from her bloody and bruised lips.

A few months had passed but nothing had changed except for the callouses on her skin had hardened and the bruises was overlaid with more bruises. Could she have been considered battle-hardened? The squabbles between Senju and Uchiha hadn't slowed but Hisa had kept pace with them, the first time walking out of the gates during battle hadn't been her last.

It was considered commonplace now and everytime she was walked back into the settlement there was a group waiting for her.

The innkeeper seemed to be set on keeping his word to Aoi and was there waiting every time alongside his wife and the medicine woman of their small village, Mizue, the gnarled and bitter face she remembered when she demanded vengeance for her brothers murder. Aoi's sister bundled her into a room in the inn and tended to whatever wounds she'd garnered trying to save their small and frail village from whatever damage the Clan's would cause.

The next morning, the children of the village came to see her.

Every time without fail.

There weren't many, Rei was ten years old and sat on the edge of her bed, his little sister in his lap. Daisuke was the one sprawled out across her legs, peering up eagerly whilst his little brother hung back. Haru was a little shy though he seemed to listen as eagerly as his brother did.

"It's always scary," she told them quietly, the mask hung around her chin.

She saw no point in hiding her gender these days, not whilst walking around the sanctuary of their village. On the battlefield, she was genderless, she was a soldier in an army of one. Her shorn hair had grown so it curled around her jaw. Nobody questioned her decision and no one said a word about it.

"But sometimes being scared is okay," she said with a small smile, feeling the tug of a particularly large scab on her lip, threatening to tear open and bleed once again.

There was a beat of silence before more questions seemed to pour out of their tiny bodies.

"Did you get really hurt?"

"Did you fight the Senju?"

"No stupid, it was the Uchiha!"

"Don't call me stupid!"

Before a brawl could break out between Haru and Daisuke, the innkeepers wife swept into the room. Their argument quietened under her firm and reprimanding glare, she was a stern woman with lines framing her features. There was a bowl of whatever stew she'd made in her hands and another pot of salve for her to rub on her wounds so they wouldn't get infected.

"Alright, Hisa's had enough visitors," she said and there was no room for argument. "Your grandparents are looking for you, Rei, Emi."

Rei knew better than to argue, simply scooping his little sister up and heading out to find his grandparents. Emi waving over his shoulder which Hisa happily returned. A laugh caught in the back of her throat when Daisuke and Haru seemed to shrivel under the innkeepers unimpressed gaze.

"And you two," the innkeeper's wife jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. "Your parents are down the hall."

They hesitated for a second.

The woman rose an eyebrow.

"Bye Hisa!" Daisuke yelped, grabbing his brother by the wrist and dragging him out of the room.

"Those boys," the woman scoffed.

"They're young," Hisa murmured fondly.

With times being as they were, there wasn't much time to simply be a child. To be considered a boy and not a man, a soldier. The woman said nothing and laid her bowl of stew on the end table, placing the pot of salve behind it. Her expression weary and amused.

"Unfortunately, they don't get much better when they're older."

* * *

 **AUTHOR NOTE: _WHAAAT? AND UPDATE ?_** **I know it's been ages but my muse has been on an all time low for pretty much everything at this point. I've had so much going on. So! Let me know what you think, we're moving into the actual meat of the war now where I can have Hisa interact with Senju's and Uchiha's. Your reviews and follows and favourites are everything to me, thank you so much!**


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